[Decoding France] - Municipal Elections: In the End, Everyone Claims Victory

A remarkable feature of France’s municipal elections is that they allow virtually the entire political class to declare victory. On Sunday, March 22, following the second round of municipal elections, political figures from the various parties made the rounds of the television programs to congratulate themselves on what they described as historic breakthroughs.

To some extent, they are at least partly justified in doing so. Given that France has 36,000 municipalities-accounting for nearly 40 percent of all European municipalities-every party can claim at least some local success.

For political observers, making sense of municipal elections is therefore a particularly delicate exercise. Each local election follows its own logic-meaning that each outcome needs to be understood on its own terms. It is important not to draw sweeping conclusions or to construct retrospective narratives that erase local particularities. It is also vital not to interpret the results as a referendum on national politics.

With these caveats in mind, let us attempt to identify a few meaningful trends from this year’s municipal elections.

Historically Low Turnout

Turnout in this year’s municipal elections was historically low. Excluding the 2020 election-whose first round took place on the eve of France’s first COVID-19 lockdown-participation has never been so weak. In the first round, turnout reached just 57 percent, compared to 64 percent in 2014 and 65 percent in 2008.

This fall in participation is the result of a convergence of three factors: the public fatigue with politics and distrust of politicians following the national political crisis that began with the 2024 dissolution; the overshadowing of the campaign by international issues, particularly the war in Iran; and finally, the campaign’s polarization, lack of clarity, and absence of substantive debate.

In the 1980s, eight out of ten French citizens voted in municipal elections. Today, what was once considered "the French people’s favorite election" is clearly in decline.

Trust in mayors remains exceptionally high (at 68 percent, compared to just 20 percent for deputies in the National Assembly)-but even this exception appears increasingly fragile.

A Local Landscape Still Structured by the Left-Right Divide

Turning to the results, one key observation emerges: the traditional left-right divide largely endures.

The left remains dominant in major cities, holding on to Paris, Lyon, and Marseille, as well as Lille and Nantes. The right continues to perform strongly in medium-sized cities-losing Nîmes but gaining Limoges, Besançon, Brest, and Clermont-Ferrand.

In other words, France’s "two-tier" political geography persists. At the local level, traditional parties retained their strongholds and maintained a solid base of executive power.

This does not imply a loss for their main national challengers-namely, the Rassemblement National (RN) and La France insoumise (LFI). Both parties entered local politics more recently, and their more modest gains do not contradict national polling trends.

The RN Breaks Through in Medium-Sized Cities-But Hits a Ceiling in Major Urban Centers

Let us turn first to the RN, which is widely seen as the frontrunner for the 2027 presidential election.

The party faces a glass ceiling in large cities, despite the strong 40 percent showing by Franck Allisio in Marseille. Elsewhere, in cities with over 100,000 inhabitants-Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Paris-RN candidates typically scored below 7-8 percent.

The RN’s gains are more significant in medium-sized cities: Orange, Castres, Menton, and Carcassonne. Of the fifty-seven municipalities that elected an RN mayor, seventeen did so in the first round, with several incumbent RN mayors reelected outright.

This matters. It reinforces the party’s "municipal showcase" strategy-a key component of its effort to build credibility and demonstrate governing competence at the local level, in contrast to the chaotic image of municipalities governed by the far right in the late 1990s.

Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice stands apart. The former leader of Les Républicains, now head of his own party allied with the RN, Ciotti is primarily perceived as a local figure rooted in the mainstream right.

The RN has clearly evolved. Once seen as a party defined almost entirely by presidential politics, it now has a broader presence across the country. Even where it did not win, it made inroads: In Le Havre, Édouard Philippe won comfortably, but the RN candidate still secured 11 percent of the vote, and in Rouen, a twenty-four-year-old RN candidate also reached 11 percent against well-established political figures.

The increase in municipal councillors also provides a crucial grassroots network for the 2027 presidential campaign.

This is where the RN’s true "victory" lies: less in capturing major symbolic cities like Marseille or Toulon and more in quietly building a dense network of local elected officials.

Finally, the election highlighted-or rather confirmed-a strategic divergence between Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. The latter extended a hand to the mainstream right after the first round, whereas the former rejected this approach, adopting a more Gaullist posture: insisting that she is neither right nor left and that her ambition is to speak to all French voters.

La France insoumise: A Targeted but Geographically Limited Success

La France insoumise is one of the parties loudly proclaiming that it achieved a "historic breakthrough."

LFI adopted a targeted strategy, focusing its efforts on carefully selected strongholds. The party fielded 10,000 candidates and reached the second round in fifty-one municipalities-typically cities with high levels of inequality and poverty: Saint-Denis, Vaulx-en-Velin, Roubaix, Vénissieux, and Creil.

Acknowledging its limited activist base but determined to maximize its impact, LFI concentrated its efforts geographically and succeeded in capturing symbolically important cities. Its success may be limited in scale, but it is politically meaningful.

This raises the broader question of left-wing unity. While Socialist Party (PS) leader Olivier Faure ruled out a national alliance, he tolerated local agreements with LFI-in Toulouse, Nantes, Limoges, and Brest. The results were mixed. In most cases, these alliances failed to deliver victory. In some instances, the LFI label may even have acted as a deterrent.

While alliances succeeded in cities such as Lyon (Greens-LFI) and Nantes (PS-LFI), the overall impression is one of strategic failure. The left remains trapped in a dilemma: With or without LFI, victory often remained out of reach.

Crucially, these elections did not resolve the question of left-wing unity. No clear strategy has emerged for 2027. The political cost is high, as the Socialist Party appears opportunistic and directionless.

Renaissance: More Resilient Than Expected

Municipal elections traditionally serve as "midterm" contests-an opportunity for voters to sanction the ruling party. In a system with two dominant blocs, they often deliver a clear rebuke to the government.

In 2026, this dynamic did not fully materialize, for the simple reason that the ruling party is largely absent at the local level. Since 2017, President Macron’s movement has struggled to establish a strong municipal base and had few incumbent mayors to lose.

However, a more surprising dynamic emerged. Without achieving a major breakthrough, Renaissance still managed to win two major cities: Bordeaux, where Thomas Cazenave (50.8 percent) defeated outgoing Green mayor Pierre Hurmic, who had allied with LFI, and Annecy, where Antoine Armand (49.3 percent) prevailed against both the left and the RN.

Two young Macron-aligned former ministers captured major cities-a result that strengthens the strategy of party leader Gabriel Attal, who has not hesitated to highlight these victories as he quietly positions himself for the 2027 presidential election.

What Do These Elections Tell Us About 2027?

It is always tempting to project the results of a local election onto a national one-but doing so is ultimately misleading. Municipal elections follow their own dynamics and cannot be used reliably to forecast presidential races.

And yet, since the morning of March 23, the 2027 presidential election has already come to dominate the conversation. Each party’s claimed "victory" is feeding new ambitions, and the starting line for the presidential race is more crowded than ever.

If these elections do not provide clear political lessons for 2027, they do offer important democratic insights. The low turnout is a worrying signal. The second-round campaign was highly polarized and often aggressive, focused more on discrediting opponents than on debating policy-especially when LFI was involved in alliances.

Polarization can sometimes boost turnout in major cities, where elections are framed as existential battles. However, this raises a deeper question: How can participation be driven not by fear or rejection but by genuine civic engagement? How can campaigns refocus on substantive issues rather than on single polarizing themes, such as immigration?

Political parties are already interpreting these results through the lens of 2027. On the left, divisions and confusion have deepened. LFI feels vindicated in running its own candidate without a primary. In the center and center-right, Édouard Philippe’s victory in Le Havre bolsters his positioning for the presidential race, while Renaissance’s success in Bordeaux strengthens Gabriel Attal’s push to establish the party’s independence.

The result is greater fragmentation-and more uncertainty than ever.

Copyright image : Lou BENOIST / AFP
A photograph taken on January 6, 2020 shows the frontage of Rouen's town hall, northwestern France.